Control of Stacking Order in a Chromonic Liquid Crystal by Polymer Scaffolds

Abstract

By introducing the chromonic liquid crystals into an ionic polymer gel, the number of stacking molecules increased compared to that in the solution state. This suggests that the polymer chains in the polymer gel act as a molecular docking scaffold to increase the stacking order of the chromonic liquid crystal. In this study, the polymer chains were prepared by copolymerization a neutral monomer with an ionic monomer, and chromonic liquid crystals were introduced into the heterogeneous polymer network and retained by ionic bonds. By changing the ratio of ionic to neutral monomers, we investigated how the order of the chromonic liquid crystal changes due to the structural change of the polymeric scaffold.